St. Paul daily globe., 1887-01-23

colt is in love with Rachel MeCreery. She
! is engaged to Lieut.. Hayne. but loves the
/ Yankee colonel in her heart of hearts,
though her Southern pride repels him. The
/ Confederate lieutenant is wounded and cap
tured while playing the spy, and. after a
trial by court martial dies in a hospital
| during an exciting episode. The Yankee
colonel is desperately wounded and taken
to the old Virginia mansion. where he
! finally gets well and wins the girl. The
| Younger sister and the Northern special
| correspondent and artist have a side-show
| love scrape. The asinine old darkey bobs
| in and out, and the absurd old Southern
woman makes e-dOnkey of herself at
every opportunlty-and the opportunities
are numerous. And finally, amid whirl-
wind OF applause and peanut hulls, the cur
| tam falls on a tableau in which two She
rebels are captured by two yankees,
who themselves are Held by the Enemy''
| in the petticoated form.
Rachel and Susan McCreery are libels on
| Southern girlhood. Rachel is an absurd
stick, without one trace of the earnest, i'm
passioned, heroic womanhood of Dixie.
She comes trailing down to the parlor in the
morning in blue silk ball-dress, with a
lace overdress and ten-foot train. Think
of it. ye imps and little tadpoles. Worth
made evening costumes dragging around
over breakfast-room floors in an old Vir-
| ginia home, when one of the favorte an
themS at every Confederate campfire was:
''Hurrah for the nomespun dress that
! Southern ladies wear" Linsey- WoolSey
robes and squirrel-skin shoes, made by their
own fair hands. were the style then. Miss
| Kathryn Kidder. who assumes the ridicu-
louS role. is nice and estimable Evanston
! girl. although she has not yet learned to
! spell her first name correctly. Evanston is
a suburb of Chicago. and the general good
ness and VirtuouSneSS OF its inhabitants
| form pleasing contrast to the wicked city.
1t has produced some excellent men and
women, including one bishop of the Meth
! Odtst church, but. as yet, has turned out no
actress. Miss Kidder is as tame and color
| less as an icicle of boarding-school tea.
Her entire stock of hstrionic genius con-
| sists of a hysterical gasp, dish-washing
wiring of the hands and an intricate twist
| ing and untwiSting of long, tight dress
around pair Of long, slim and sinuous
legs.
Miss Louise Dillon, as Susan McCreery,
is simply an atrocity, although she brings
down the house at every caper. She is an
outrage on American girls, regardless of
| section or class. AS representative of
| the girls of the south she is a scandalous
caricature. Imagine well-born and we'll
| bred Southern girl rushing into her own
| parlor to fllrt ami to Smirk like beer
| jerker, at sight. with an insolent intruder,
whom her niger butler should instantly
kick down the front steps. Fancy her
Singing herself down on a sofa, and cock
ing her feet up over the end of it. while she
talks dance-house slang to blackguard
whom she never saw before. Her kitten
ish antics are of the tom-kitten variety. Her
conception Of Southern girl character and
demeanor has been drawn from concert
saloon or hurdy-gurdy show. She cavortS
around with no apparent object but to show
| her feet and Sims. She wallows over
chairs and lounges IN hundred vulgar
! fashions, and makes open love to brass
faced adventrIrer with all the simpering in
decent coyness of feminine Hottentot
And yet. the mob of gorgeously
appareled men and women shouts and
laughs at everything she does or says.
Bean, the Northern newspaper correspond
ent and artist, is the perfection of brazen
vulgarity: a beast, beside whose ''cheek''
| the prOverbial ''army mule" would become
a paragon of schoolgirl modesty and deli
cacy. Such representation is an insult to
the whole noble and potent profession of
| journalism. The major general rants and
cuts up like nigger-minstrel end-man, and
| an old civilian saddle, with hOgskin seat,
! does decorative duty at his Headquarters.
The Confederate lieutenant, in a surgeons
uniform with black facings, is utterly con-
! temptible first cOllapSing with abject ter
rOr before the cOurt-martlal, and then going
off in a ludlcrOuS fit of hysterical heroics.
| The old darhey takes part in the family
councils and conversations in the parlor. as
| freeand easily as in the discussions of the
! quarters" cabins; and hospital DOCTOR
with impunity. defied the orders
OF the post commander. In the
court-martial scene the spiritlesS
Rachel makes shrieky stump speeches, and
the presiding general thunders back bonn
bastic replies; and the whole piece abounds
with similar absurdities, monstrosites, ludi-
| croSlties and prepOSteroSitieS.
But, with all its faults, it contains fOunda-
tion and material for a great play The
court-martial scene the hospital scene and
the battle scene are all capable of being
| made in the highest degree sensational and
| thrilling. / am inclined to apply to Mr.
Gillette's play the Hibernian comment on
| the emaciated thoroughbred steed in front
Of the blacksmith shop: BE jabers, now.
what an Elegant skeleton to build horse
on.' But, as you may have inferred from
| the foregoing few remarks. | do not think
The Great American Play" has yet been
written. P. DoNAN.
Chicago. Jan. II, 1887.